


Past and Present

by Enigel



Category: Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye
Genre: Community: fandom_stocking, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-05
Updated: 2009-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:05:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enigel/pseuds/Enigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A nosy gringo talks with a smooth gentleman over a bottle of gin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Past and Present

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kindkit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindkit/gifts).



> Written for kindkit's fandom_stocking.

The gin was sloshing in my glass, the only sound apart from Terry's even breath and the small distant sounds of Señora Flores preparing dinner.

"The night is old, and we don't get do-overs." I spoke into my glass, mostly for myself. I was feeling in the most maudlin of moods.

"Who said that?" Terry mumbled, voice heavy with sleep.

"I just did. Don't know that anyone else said it before me, but it wouldn't surprise me. The world is full of unlucky buggers who come to the same conclusions every day."

Terry didn't reply to that, but sighed and blinked at me from his nest of white sheets and pillows. His face was barely more colorful than the sheets.

"Why bother, Terry? Can I call you Terry?"

"I like that name, wouldn't have picked it otherwise, but it's not healthy to keep saying it."

"Does Señor Majoranos have a first name?"

"Of course. Pedro."

"Of course," I said and poured myself another healthy dose of gin. I was planning on getting smashing drunk.

"You haven't answered, Pedro. Why bother?"

He looked at me, seeming genuinely surprised.

"You still think I somehow maneuvered it so you'd get hired on this case? Marlowe, I honestly had nothing to do with it."

"Can you honestly do anything, Terry, Pedro, whoever?"

He sighed and looked hurt.

Was it too late to believe him now? My once friend, whom I considered dead for a year, now almost dead again under his latest incarnation. It didn't make sense for the smooth Señor M. to eat a bullet for a gringo who was sticking his nose in other people's business. He was as pig-headed as I was, my friend of many names, and just as lucky, it seemed.

Thanks to my profession and to those who'd rather have it, and me, removed, I know how to tend to wounds of various gravity. Señora Flores helped, because knowledge without instruments is like a magician without his hat, and together we pulled a fucking white rabbit out of our hats.

A weird whimsy made me wash the bullet and keep it. I don't know exactly what I wanted with that. Maybe it was just that, a whimsy of an aging detective who received one too many fists to his head. But Paul-Terry-Pedro noticed it, and he got that look in his eyes, like when he's about to say something really clever or really sappy. He didn't say anything, though. He just looked at me like that, but I'm trained to resist interrogation techniques ten times more persuasive than that, not to mention more painful. I still had to bite my tongue against the impulse to justify myself.

Why did I want to keep it? As a reminder of... what? I'd let myself get beaten and locked up for Terry, and now Terry-Paul-Pedro had taken a bullet for me. I knew him well enough to know he wasn't expecting gratitude. He was maybe returning a favor.

I rolled the shiny piece of deadly metal between my fingers, looking it in the orange light of the bulb.

"Why, Terry?"

"Because I could."

I leaned back and sipped more of the gin. Maybe he wanted to prove something, to me, to himself, who knew. Maybe he didn't know it himself. The gin was harsh and a little too much on the bitter side.

"Can I touch it?"

"Sure. You can keep it if you want, too."

I proffered the bullet to him, and he took my hand in his instead. My heart began pounding like a war drum, all by itself. Dammit, Terry, don't do this to me. I'm too old and wise for this, and not old enough to be so fucking sentimental.

"It never was routine with you," he said softly, and damned if I wanted to know what he was referring to, but I knew it anyway - a callback to one of our stupid philosophical conversations about women.

He pulled me closer, until I was leaning over him. My spine was bent at an awkward angle and it was uncomfortable as hell. Terry was pale under his tan and the sheets smelled of disinfectant and blood. His eyes were shining though, and his lips parted, maybe to say some other stupid sentimental thing, or maybe as an invitation.

I moved to sit on the edge of his bed, braced my free hand on the pillow and gave in to the gin-soaked mood of the late afternoon. I kissed Terry and he kissed me, and I was glad that my hands were otherwise occupied and I couldn't move them to his face. I didn't want to be searching for scars that wouldn't be there. Pedro might have had different lips, but they moved just the same against my mouth, and his tongue sought mine with the same languid abandon. With my eyes closed, the illusion was perfect.

A small noise from the hall made me jump and pull back. Terry let go of my hand and I turned to see Señora Flores approaching with the food tray. If she'd seen us, she had the mother of all poker faces, because her features didn't betray anything else than mild concern.

"Señor Majoranos should rest," she said.

Terry smiled at her and thanked her in his flawless Spanish. She closed the door on her way out, but the moment was broken.

Terry picked up on the change of mood and returned to more solid conversational grounds.

"How is the case going?"

"Peachy," I said. "Only two men dead so far, and I think I know who the requisite corrupt cop is." Well, the most corrupted of them. We were in Mexico, after all. "I might not even have to suffer another assassination attempt before the end of it."

"Would you care to be my guest for the duration?" he inquired in that understated, polite way of his.

"Sure. If you think your reputation won't be irredeemably sullied by harboring a nosy gringo."

He smiled. Unhampered by the scars, there was still enough of his old smile to bring back memories of badly lit evenings soaked in gimlets.

Maybe I'd stay longer, just enough to let the cops back home think I'd died or something. It would be precious to see their faces when I came back.

The case was a very handy excuse. I guessed I'd probably stay until Terry got back on his feet anyway. I'm just that kind of sucker. I didn't say that though. Terry would find out in due time, though I suspected he already knew. Maybe that was the whole reason why he'd taken the bullet for me. I might find that out in due time, too.


End file.
